Pinky and Perky - Original Series

Original Series

The title characters are a pair of anthropomorphic puppet pigs, named "Pinky" and "Perky",who were originally going to be named "pinky" and "porky" but there was a problem regestering porky as a character name. They were created by Czechoslovakian immigrants Jan and Vlasta Dalibor.The characters of pigs were chosen because the pig is seen as a symbol of good luck in the former Czechoslovakia. The puppets, who had only very limited movements, looked very alike. Pinky wore red clothes and Perky wore blue, but this distinction was little use on black-and-white TV, so Perky often wore a hat.

Pinky and Perky spoke and sang in high-pitched voices created by re-playing original voice recordings at twice the original recorded speed; the vocals were sung by Mike Sammes while the backing track was played at half normal speed (Sammes did the same job for Ken Dodd's Diddymen, as Ross Bagdasarian did for the original Chipmunks in the early 1960s) - hence the expression "Pinky and Perky speed", when an LP record is played at 45 rpm or 78 rpm instead of the correct 33⅓ rpm. Pinky and Perky would often sing cover versions of popular songs, but also had their own theme song, "We Belong Together".

They had their own fictional TV station "PPC TV". They also performed comedy sketches usually with a human foil (similar to Basil Brush). Actor John Slater worked with them as a straight man for many years, enduring soakings from water pistols and such pranks. Other human companions included Roger Moffat, Jimmy Thompson, Bryan Burdon and Fred Emney.

Their show included other puppets, such as The Beakles (an avian parody of The Beatles), Topo Gigio, a mouse puppet who appeared in many later episodes, as well as a female pig. Other puppets included Ambrose Cat, Basil Bloodhound, Bertie Bonkers the baby elephant, Conchita the Cow, Horace Hare and Vera Vixen.

The puppets also appeared on TV in the USA on a number of episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show: 532 (14 September 1958), 548 (4 January 1959), 573 (5 July 1959), 740 (10 March 1963), 780 (23 February 1964, where they shared the bill with The Beatles and Morecambe and Wise) and 908 (26 February 1967).

The pigs featured in series, such as Pinky and Perky's Pop Parade and Pinky and Perky's Island, for 11 years until 1968 on the BBC before transferring to ITV until 1971. There were no real people, sketches or stories in the shows at all. Instead, the puppets would be seen lip-synching and dancing to songs by the likes of Petula Clark. In this incarnation, each episode would end with the characters singing The Scaffold's hit "Thank U Very Much"; at the end of every episode, they would sing "Thank you very, very, very". At this point, there would be the only piece of spoken dialogue, which went along these lines:

"Who's going to say it?"

"Oh, let me!"

"No! I want to!"

"Alright, then, let's do it together! Ready - MUCH!"